Intrinsic safety (Ex i) is the safest explosion protection concept for electrical equipment in hazardous areas. Learn the fundamentals, protection levels ia/ib/ic, Zener barriers and relevant standards.
In the development of intrinsically safe devices, the precise calculation of the pulse load on Zener diodes is essential, especially for devices operating with mains voltage. In this article, you will learn through an example how the calculation can be carried out accurately.
As an engineer or technician, you are often faced with the challenge of carrying out calculations, documenting them properly and providing the results in a form that is available in the long term and can be used flexibly. It was the same for me when I started my own business and had to carry out calculations for my customers' documentation. At that time, I was already familiar with the usual programmes such as Excel or Mathcad, but these had their limitations in terms of readability and exportability. I also did a lot of calculations with my pocket calculator (greetings to all Casio FX-991 users), but the effort involved in documentation and the susceptibility to errors is simply too high. After a bit of research and trying out various tools, I came across Calcpad - a powerful, yet lean tool that I wouldn't want to be without for my work. I've grown so fond of the programme that I've been supporting the developer (Hi Ned!) for a while now and am happy to recommend it to my clients, where it's already being used extensively by a number of developers.
